Six years ago the entire Linux enthusiast space was super excited for the PinePhone, then everything fell apart. What went wrong? Was PINE64’s favoritism towards Manjaro the sole issue or were there other problems?
I have both the PinePhone and the PinePhone Pro, IMHO :
- lack of Android apps (yes, I know, weird to open with that but for a lot of people, that’s the 1 thing, not actual calls or SMS) despite Waydroid because it didn’t exist initially then requires higher specs
- bad power management : the battery is small so without spot on power management one ends up with less than a day of normal usage, that’s a show stopper for most
- lack of updates : the PinePhone Pro was available without camera support, no big deal, most were expecting based on the initial pace of updates that it would eventually come but even today checking https://wiki.pine64.org/wiki/PinePhone_Pro it’s either
Not implementedorNot working
… so with all that very very few people used either as a daily driver and thus even less probably invested time to make it actually usable.
It’s amazing as a tinkering device with connectivity… but in practice I went instead to a deGoogle Android phone (with /e/OS by Murena). I still have other hardware by Pine, e.g. PineNote or PineTab2, so I do enjoy they provide a very valuable service to the community and I’ll keep on, probably, getting more from them but one has to be pragmatic about the software limitations coming from a company that basically does not provide software for the hardware they sell.
Regarding Android apps: I hope that https://gitlab.com/android_translation_layer/android_translation_layer will make a difference here going forward. A Wine-like approach is just so much less of a resource hog.
Regarding the Camera on the PinePhone Pro: It somewhat works by now, if not on every OS. Be it with libcamera or Megapixels 2, we’re getting there. I suppose it’s just that nobody told the Wiki.
Right or https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/09/valve-appear-to-be-testing-arm64-and-android-support-for-steam-on-linux/ is also pretty positive but until it’s actually done and does support banking apps (which might not be possible due to a lot of restrictions, e.g Google services, signed ROM only, etc) then everybody will remain on the fence.
Good to know for the PPPro. PmOS indicates the support as partial https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/PINE64_PinePhone_Pro_(pine64-pinephonepro) I should try again at some point.
Just 2ct’s on the banking thing (sorry if it sounds rude, but I just can’t hear it anymore):
Just forget banking apps of you don’t want to stay on iOS or proper Google Android forever and ever and ever, even AOSP-based OSes struggle with that (a lot).
Go to a bank that still has a proper website and allows some kind of hardware device for TAN (and tell them that this is why you are leaving/joining) - we need to show market demand for alternative solutions or else these will disappear completely over time.
We also need to make regulators/politicians understand, that taking part in life must be possible without owning a device blessed by Google or Apple. We really need laws here.
It’s not rude but it’s incorrect. I have a deGoogled phone and do mobile banking with it. I don’t know for how long though but just to say it’s possible today.
Yes though I do recommend relying on a bank that does not force its customers to use Apple or Google only. I hope they’d be a way to disclose that beside just name & shame.
Glad that works for you! With my bank (comdirect.de) I can use a mobile website, and if I were to use something AOSP- or Halium-based, I could also use their PhotoTAN app, which, as the name implies, needs a working camera in Waydroid (on my OP6 with pmOS, the cameras work via libcamera, but not in Waydroid), so I have a small gadget for all these TANs.
My main worry with the “let’s just use Play Store/Aurora store and the run that apk”-approach is that it does not really send a visible signal to banks that they need to keep considering customers that don’t use Android proper.
It also always means that the next update (e.g., after some consultancy or some audit happened) may not work any more, meaning, access may be revoked at any time. Complaining to customer service or in Play Store reviews may have an effect, but it will still hurt. I think I would feel a tad safer if a banking app lived on FDroid… but sill.
I hope this gets my point across.
I’d say it didn’t fail. It was never really a consumer phone. It was an attempt to get hardware in the hands of developers, and it achieved that.
Other posts here discuss why it didn’t receive wider adoption.
I daily drove my PinePhone until I could no longer receive MMS messages, since my service provider has a different APN for the internet and MMS. That, and the modem became more unreliable over time. I like my PinePhone, but an average user would never adopt it as it is.
Except it absolutely did. Sure, it got hardware in the hands of developers, but that effort didn’t amount to anything. Pinebook paved the way for Pinebook Pro, which made good on company’s promise of an open, affordable, low power laptop for Linux enthusiasts.
This never materialized with Pinephone, it didn’t even mature enough to satisfy most of the early adopters, who for the most part only wanted reliable calling and texting.
So I think there were a few issues.
- the original pinephone was basically too slow to be usable
- there were a few hardware quirks that had to be fixed in software but made mainlining drivers for it difficult
- the lack of community updates (and you could argue overall community management) caused some developers to move away while also impeded pine64s ability to attract new developers
- the lack of any sort of funding for developers made it difficult for people to work on as any more than a hobby (not necessarily pine64’s fault, but it’s the reality)
- poor battery life (better idle and sleep support would have been software issues but the hardware was designed to be cheap instead of really useful)
- daily driving Linux on a phone is a poor experience - not pine64s fault but there’s a bunch of support missing in Linux that needs to be developed before early adopters can really use Linux phones. Modem power management, audio switching between Bluetooth and speaker, MMS support, camera support, etc.
Did it fail? I hate headlines like this. Just because it isn’t popular now, doesn’t mean it didn’t make progress in its space.
Did it fail?
Yes… it did. I have both (details in this post) and I’d love to use either daily yet I don’t do it. I also don’t know anybody who does.
Was it useful? Absolutely but IMHO the fact that the 2nd version is not fully usable (camera, power usage, etc) without active progress despite being a 4 years old specifically targeting tinkers is not a success. I’m genuinely wondering who would want a PinePhone 2. I’d love to but based on what happened with the Pro, I’m not sure I would despite using my other Pine64 on a daily basis.
Tbh, AOSP is good enough of a basis. GrapheneOS thrives on it.
